TOON fans are planning to whip up support for their team with a sea of black and white scarves this weekend.

An online campaign to ‘Bring back the scarves’ to St James’s Park is gathering pace with thousands of supporters backing the plan.

It comes after past initiatives by Newcastle United, such as during Alan Shearer’s testimonial, where scarves or flags are given out to fans to create a better atmosphere inside the stadium.

Now fans have taken to social networking site Twitter to encourage all fans attending this Sunday’s home match against Fulham to bring along a Toon scarf and wave it in support.

Season ticket holder Lee Hawkins started the hashtag #bringbackthescarves on Twitter this week and within hours it was ‘trending’ across the site.

The 26-year-old, of Westerhope, Newcastle said: “I was talking with some friends and we all said how great it would be if we could have all the fans waving scarves again.

“When it has happened before the atmosphere was amazing and it must be terrifying for the opposition players.

“I didn’t have many followers on Twitter so I sent messages to all the fans’ groups and they all came on board.

“I’ve been sending messages to some of the Newcastle players too to try and get them to send out the message to all their followers too.”

Season ticket holder Jack Greenwell set up a Twitter profile for ‘Bring back the scarves’ and was amazed by the response.

The 19-year-old from Boldon Colliery, South Tyneside, said: “After the singing section in the Leazes End being disbanded I thought this was a brilliant idea to get the atmosphere going again in the stadium.

“I’ve been really shocked by how many people have been supporting the campaign.”

The scarves campaign comes after representatives from fans groups met to discuss how best to improve communication between the club and supporters.

NUFC Fans United held its first meeting earlier this month and they will now meet on a monthly basis and fans will have the opportunity to discuss the state of affairs presently engulfing the club, with these views being fed back to club management via NUFC honorary Vice-President Malcolm Dix.

Fans’ groups are supporting the campaign with several of them gaining support from their army of online followers.

Kevin Moore, a founder of Utd for Newcastle, said his group were supporting the plan.

The 27-year-old, of Chapel house, Newcastle, said: “We think it’s a great idea and hope all of the fans get behind it.”